As the U.S. population ages, so too do community volunteers, and that creates a challenge for nonprofits and public agencies as older volunteers — who are a significant part of the volunteer workforce — sometimes become unable to perform their roles effectively yet often don’t want to quit.
With 1 in 5 Americans projected to be over the age of 65 by 2030, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, volunteer managers should begin to consider how the service careers of their older volunteers will end, suggested a study by Dr. Allison Russell, a University of Texas at Dallas assistant professor of public and nonprofit management in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. The research was published online Jan. 27 in the International Journal of Community Well-Being.
The contribution of volunteers over 65 is huge: Approximately 18.7 million of them devoted more than 3 billion hours of service between 2008 and 2010.
Russell, the corresponding author of the study, and her colleagues interviewed 25 volunteers between the ages of 65 and 89 who worked in a veterans’ health care system in a large metropolitan area.
The volunteers’ reasons for their service varied. They ranged from simply staving off boredom to having a service-driven personality to religion. For example, one study participant who volunteered at a hospice said, “I’m a religious person. I just want to make sure I can do anything I can to make them transition to everlasting life, you know?”
Volunteers see their service as an innate part of their identity, Russell said. They view it as less of a choice and more of a passion that reflects deeper parts of their personality and values.
But when it’s time to help volunteers move on from roles they can no longer effectively handle, it can be tricky from an organizational viewpoint, Russell said, because liability issues connected to using older volunteers must be balanced with avoiding the appearance of age discrimination — not to mention the loss of valuable service. Volunteering may become a major part of a person’s identity in this stage of their lifetime, she said.
One study participant was an 85-year-old veteran who had volunteered in some capacity for more than 50 years, including staffing the popcorn machine in the lobby of a Department of Veterans Affairs medical facility. It took a fall while alone in his home — and subsequent recommendations from his physician and concerned family members — for him to decide to step down.
“Retirement from volunteering was often seen by study participants as a step that they wanted to avoid at all costs,” Russell said. “And in some cases, it was evident that participants had never considered this question before their interview. It’s like you’re asking people to plan their own funeral.”
“Building in systems that allow you to assess performance is really a best practice around volunteer management.”
Dr. Allison Russell, assistant professor of public and nonprofit management in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences
It’s important, Russell said, for volunteer managers to have formal evaluation procedures in place before the question even arises, for the benefit of both the volunteer and the organization.
“Building in systems that allow you to assess performance is really a best practice around volunteer management,” she said.
Three-Stage Model
Based on findings from the study participants, the researchers proposed a three-stage model for helping volunteers make this transition. Their model is based on the work of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the psychiatrist who famously identified stages of grief.
The stages of accepting the end of one’s volunteer career include an initial stage of denial. (“I’ll volunteer until I die.”)
This is followed by an awareness of age limitations. (“I’ll volunteer as long as I can walk, but when this rheumatoid arthritis catches up with me … .”)
The last stage is a kind of identity retention. Volunteers work to hold on to their identity as a volunteer even when they can no longer perform their duties.
Russell said helping older volunteers navigate these steps often falls to volunteer administrators and other staff, who may not be specifically trained in negotiating these transitions.
An initial tactic, also beneficial to both the volunteer and organization, may be to lighten the workload or change the task assigned to the volunteer. Establishing formal practices and policies that recognize volunteers’ valuable service also can ease the path to retirement, she said.
“These could include an award for years of service, emeritus status or continuing to include volunteer retirees in conversations about the organization,” Russell said, noting that it’s important to emphasize that even when older volunteers’ roles change, they remain valued and important contributors to the organization.
Ultimately, volunteer managers should be cognizant of the sense of well-being that volunteers derive from their activities and work toward a transition that is respectful and appreciative of their significant contributions, she said.
Other authors of the study are Dr. Melissa A. Heinlein Storti of the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia and Dr. Femida Handy of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.